Walsh Out To Indict Popular North As Well As Others, Sources Say

August 6, 1987|By Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Despite the outpouring of public support for former White House aide Oliver North, there is no doubt that independent counsel Lawrence Walsh will seek to indict him and other principals in the Iran-contra case, sources familiar with Walsh's probe said Wednesday.

Now that the House and Senate committees have ended public hearings, the spotlight is shifting to Walsh's effort to bring criminal charges. And the sources predicted that the independent counsel will ask a grand jury to return indictments for conspiring to defraud the United States, the same charge for which some Watergate figures were convicted.

The specific fraud in the Iran-contra affair, the sources say, could be misappropriating the profits of the Iranian arms sales for such private uses as aiding Nicaragua's contras. More generally, it could involve disrupting normal governmental processes.

The sources include attorneys for prospective defendants and witnesses and others acquainted with the investigation by Walsh, his 29 associate counsels and the 35 FBI agents, 11 Internal Revenue Service agents and 6 Customs Service investigators assigned to his office. Walsh's office, citing rules of grand jury secrecy, declined to discuss the investigation.

Problems with gathering evidence, such as copies of Swiss bank records on the arms sales and obtaining handwriting samples of North and other major figures, are delaying the major charges until the fall, the sources said. North's constitutional challenge to the law under which Walsh is operating also has slowed the prosecution.

Lesser cases with tentacles to an alleged central conspiracy could bring quicker indictments, the sources said. Fund-raiser Carl Channell and public relations executive Richard Miller pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government in their tax-exempt plan for raising private donations to the contras, and both named North as a co-conspirator.

Besides North, targets of Walsh's investigation include former national security adviser John Poindexter and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord, who helped operate the private arms airlift to the contras and the arms sales to Iran. In legal terms, a target is someone who, in the prosecutor's judgment, likely will be indicted.

Beyond conspiring to defraud the government, other possible criminal charges include lying to Congress, obstructing justice and destroying government property, according to the sources. Poindexter admitted to the House and Senate committees that he withheld information from Congress, and North said he shredded important documents.